Damaged Hope

by L. K. Hill

  Kyra willed her body to move. Her fingers moved more easily than before. Her hands twitched spasmodically.

  Against the far wall, perhaps twelve feet away, some kind of counter or table stood. Limping Guy moved to it, his back to her, and began doing something she couldn't make out.

  Above him, written on the wall, was something Kyra immediately recognized. Seeing it here made her heart slam faster and harder against her rib cage. Like the sign above the door, the letters loomed large enough—a couple of feet tall at least—that Kyra deciphered them easily despite her blurred vision.

  G-A-A-P.

  The same letters spray painted on her hotel room door. That meant….

  Limping Guy worked silently for several minutes, while Kyra concentrated on getting her fingers to move. The paralytic was wearing off. She moved her hands against the desert sand. They flopped like dying fish, but at least she could move them.

  Her head felt thick, though. As if her mental state deteriorated as her body recovered. What the hell did he inject her with?

  Limping Guy abruptly turned from the table and picked up what looked vaguely like a shovel. Her heart rate spiked. Fear made her cold, despite her violent heartbeat.

  He began digging ten feet in front of her, easily shoveling the dirt from one place to another.

  Two minutes later, he set the shovel aside, turned back to the table, and scooped something off of it and into his arms. He turned back to Kyra, and it all clicked for her. The mounds, the shovel.

  Even through the blurriness, she could tell he held a human body in his arms. One he intended to bury. Her eyes slide sideways to the mounds around her. There must have been twenty or thirty at least.

  She sat paralyzed in a graveyard.

  She fought the heaviness in her limbs harder than ever. She felt like she couldn't stay awake, couldn't think in complete sentence. No, she had to fight. She needed to get out of here.

  Gabe's face entered her mind. The sudden desire to see him came so violently, her chest hurt. Or was that the drug this man injected her with? She would die here tonight. Perhaps end up in one of Gabe's crime scenes. The thought of hurting him felt worse than the thought of her own death. Now she lay powerless to stop it.

  She managed to kick one leg outward and registered fleeting triumph. Limping Guy's head snapped up sharply at the movement, but he didn't come toward her. Not until after he'd finished burying the body.

  Then he moved forward and squatted in front of her again.

  Despite having more feeling in her limbs, she couldn't focus on commanding them to move. Her brain felt mushy, abstract.

  "You are my equal, Chameleon," his voice echoed in a way it hadn't before. Colors and shapes danced before her eyes. "I knew you'd come to me eventually. I didn't expect it so soon—"

  He cut off, looking at something behind her. Lunging to his feet, he disappeared from view.

  Footsteps. She heard the limp in his retreat. Now they were someone else's. No limp. Approaching.

  Another face appeared above hers. A different man from the first, but her vision remained too blurry to make him out. Much darker hair and paler skin. When the man peered upward, in the direction her attacker had gone, a ponytail swayed into view. She made out an aquiline nose. It slid from narrow to bulbous and back again in her warped vision. She knew this man. Why did his name keep slipping away? She tried to ask him questions. Once again, baby-like gurgles escaped her throat.

  The man gazed back into Kyra’s face. He put his fingers on her neck, where the needle had bitten, and pain lanced through her spine. She would have screamed if she’d been able. The air wheezed through her throat as she struggled to pull it in. His fingers on the wound made it next to impossible. It felt like being strangled. They moved to the right side of her trachea, directly over her hammering heartbeat.

  “Shit,” the man muttered.

  He lifted Kyra off the ground. The most intense sense of vertigo she’d ever experienced slammed through her head. As though her brain was evaporating. She thought she’d vomit, but her gag reflex seemed to be malfunctioning.

  The man scooped her up. The wooden ceiling. The sky. The tips of rooftop overhangs in her periphery. The tops of alleys as they moved back into the Mire. She wished she could hold on to him, or ask him to set her down, only for a moment so she could breathe. Above all, she wished for the burning in her middle to stop.

  It didn’t. Not at all.

  How twisted they must look. Darkness carrying light, down an empty street in a forgotten city. No one else to see their passage or remember it later. The Mire swallowed their journey.

  Chapter 3

  A soft guitar reached Gabe’s ears: his favorite rock song. It sounded tinny and far away, as though it came from the opposite end of a long, dark tunnel. Gabe moved swiftly through the tunnel, though, and the electric guitar grew louder and more distinct as he approached.

  Gabe sat up with a start. His cell rang and buzzed on his bedside table. The light from the screen shone so bright in the darkness that looking at it felt like staring into the sun. By the time his eyes adjusted, the ringing had stopped.

  Shawn’s name appeared on the “missed call” screen. Gabe frowned. Shawn wouldn’t call him except for something important. Gabe squinted at the phone again. Close to midnight. He would normally have started his shift hours ago, but on account of not having slept for nearly forty-eight hours, Shawn ordered him home and to bed.

  Gabe obeyed reluctantly, mostly because he couldn't think in complete sentences by that time. At home, he'd taken a shower so hot the water scalded him, leaving his skin lobster-red. It hadn’t washed away the dense, brick-like feeling packing itself around his heart ever since reading the word engraved on that damn coin. It didn't seem possible. This case had turned into a sprawling puzzle. The pieces were inside out, backward, and veered into the fourth dimension.

  Gabe fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep. He’d been out for nearly nine hours. Shawn wouldn’t wake him unless it couldn’t wait.

  Gabe stabbed the callback button three times before hitting it.

  “Gabe.” Shawn answered before the first ring finished.

  “What happened?” Gabe asked. “Hammond say something?”

  “No. This isn’t about Dillon. It’s about Kyra. Morris just picked her up. Get down here. Something’s really wrong.”

  *******

  Gabe sprinted into the precinct. Doug sat in his usual spot at the front desk, face grim and worried. When he caught sight of Gabe, he merely pointed down the hallway to Gabe’s left.

  Jogging along the corridor in the direction Doug pointed, Gabe caught sight of two unies standing guard outside one of the interrogation rooms. One of them saw him and motioned him on.

  Gabe hurried forward, waiting for the unie to explain. The young man merely opened the door for him.

  Gabe stepped through and gasped.

  In a ladder-backed chair on one side of the white table sat Kyra. She wore her Supra getup—black, spiky wig, dark baggy clothes, skin the color of an overcast sky. Yet, she looked…all wrong. She didn’t seem to be able to sit up straight. She swayed from one side to the other, nearly falling out of her chair each time.

  Shawn stood behind her chair, palms hovering near Kyra's shoulders, poised to catch her if she fell. Each time she leaned too far to one side, Shaun grasped her shoulders and straightened her posture for her.

  Kyra's head dipped forward and back constantly, as if she couldn’t stay awake, and her eyes kept rolling back in her head. Most disturbing of all, a low, whiny hum issued constantly from her mouth, as though she’d forgotten how to speak.

  Horrible bruises covered one side of her face, the black and purple skin pushing upward through the pale makeup. One arm showed a cut—no, gash. Open fissure. It wasn’t bleeding but obviously needed to be stitched.

  “Kyra!”

  Gabe ran forward, sliding to his knees in front of her chair. He took her face in his hands and gazed i
nto her eyes. Her eyes remained completely unfocused, as if seeing right through him. She didn’t fight his grip. Nor did she acknowledge his presence.

  “Kyra. Kyra.” She still slumped from one side to the other. Only his grip on her jaw and neck kept her upright. Saying her name sparked no recognition in her eyes.

  “No one’s gotten through to her,” Shawn said. “She hasn’t said a word since Morris picked her up. Only that…humming.”

  He glared at Shawn. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know,” Tyke said quietly. He stood on the other side of the room next to officer Morris, who looked worried.

  “Morris?” Gabe said.

  “Dispatch got an anonymous call about a disturbance. When I got there, she already looked like this, surrounded by Mirelings.”

  “They did this to her?” Gabe asked, anger rising in his gut.

  Morris hesitated. “I don’t think so. One witness said someone laid her down in the alley, already in this state. The crowd gathered after that. I think most of them wanted to…take advantage of her.”

  Gabe took in Kyra’s appearance again. Her clothes looked to be intact. “Did they?” he asked quietly.

  “Not that I saw.” Morris answered. "It's a good thing we arrived when we did."

  “We’ll have the doctor do a rape kit, Gabe," Shaun said. "Just to be sure.”

  Gabe turned back to his boss. “You’re taking her to the hospital?”

  “We sent for a bus,” Shawn said.

  “Why didn’t you take her there to begin with?”

  “She was acting high,” Morris sighed. “I planned to let her sleep it off in booking. Give you a call, of course. Vice brought a bunch of Mirelings in, so Shaun brought her in here, to protect her identity. We had no reason to think she was in trouble medically. Ten minutes ago, Shaun noticed something.”

  “What?” Gabe asked.

  Shawn motioned for Gabe to come around behind Kyra's chair. Gabe wanted to, but feared Kyra would fall out of the chair. Keeping on hand on the right side of her face, he moved around to the left, letting her lean against the length of his arm. When he came level with her chair. He bent and peered around to see what Shawn pointed at.

  From the back of Kyra’s left arm glared the most epic, gnarly bruise Gabe had ever seen. It covered her entire tricep, a four-inch mass of black skin, which faded to dark purple, light purple, blue, and yellow. The center appeared almost concave.

  “Is it,” Gabe leaned closer, “a puncture mark?”

  Shawn nodded.

  “Someone injected her with something.”

  “More like stabbed her with the needle,” Tyke said grimly. “And coming from behind like that…this isn’t a case of her getting high. Someone attacked her.”

  “We have no idea what she was given,” Shawn said. “We’ll have to let the doctors decide. Her behavior has gotten weirder since I first noticed it. The bus should be here any minute.”

  Gabe felt movement under the arm he had wrapped around Kyra and turned to look at her. She’d raised both hands to rest on top of the table. As Gabe watched, she raked her fingernails rapidly against the plastic surface. It made an eerie, screeching sound. Gabe shuddered. The others winced.

  “Gabe.” His name left her throat like a painful moan.

  Gabe moved back around in front of Kyra, taking her face in his hands again. “Kyra,” he said, more quietly than before. “I’m here. I’m right here. Can you tell us what happened?”

  Her eyes had become focused. She peered into his face with a quiet desperation.

  “Kyra,” he said softly.

  Her head fell forward again, resting against his shoulder.

  He put a hand on the top of her hair, looking up at Shawn.

  “Keep her talking,” Shawn mouthed at him.

  Gabe nodded. He took her shoulders and pushed her back gently so he could look her in the face. “Kyra—”

  “Ze…burble…valentine-uh.”

  Gabe frowned. “What?”

  “Sounded like the purple valentine,” Tyke said.

  “Yeah,” Shawn nodded. “To me too.”

  “What’s that?” Gabe asked.

  “No idea.” Shawn said.

  “Sounds like a musical group,” Tyke muttered.

  “Izz in..ze…burple…valentine.”

  Her chest heaved, more than it had when he first entered the room, as if breathing became more difficult for her with each passing minute. “What’s in the purple valentine, Kyra? What is it?”

  Kyra wheezed in a painful breath. “He’zgonnakillme.”

  “No Kyra,” Gabe said firmly. “No one else is going to hurt you. You’re safe here. In the precinct with us.”

  “Hez in…burble…valentine-uh.”

  Gabe blew out his breath in frustration. “Who is, Kyra? Give us a name.”

  “Gabe,” Shawn said quietly. “This may be nothing. Only the havoc the drug is wreaking on her brain.”

  “Hmm.” The voice came from the other side of the room.

  Gabe wrenched his head around to look at Morris, who scrolled down on his phone. “What?”

  “A fifties dive bar by that name existed in Old Abstreuse. Hasn’t been in service for decades.” Morris raised an eyebrow. “And a best-selling romance novel.” He glanced up at Gabe. “That’s all I got. Forgive me. I know she,” he glanced at Kyra, “is strictly need-to-know, but I somehow doubt she’s into cheesy romance novels. I do have it on good authority she wanders around the Mire, however. One part of the Mire does connect with Old Abstreuse.”

  “What would she have been doing in Old Abstreuse?” Tyke asked.

  “I have no idea,” Gabe admitted.

  “Iz gonna kill me,” Kyra whispered.

  Shawn frowned. “She’s switching out her pronouns.”

  Gabe stared at Shawn. “She…what?”

  “The first time, she said, ‘it’s in the purple valentine’ and ‘he’s gonna kill me.’ The second time it changed to ‘he’s in the purple valentine’ and ‘it’s gonna kill me.’”

  Gabe shook himself. Leave it to Shawn to pick up a detail like that. “So…?”

  Shawn shook his head, looking bewildered.

  “Gabe.”

  Gabe gazed back down at Kyra. Terror flitted across her face. “Medics are on the way, Kyra. We’ll get you help. You’ll be fine.”

  She stretched a hand blindly, as though reaching for something. He thought she might be reaching for him, but couldn't see that he knelt directly in front of her. He took her hand firmly with his, interlocking their fingers.

  "I'm here, Kyra." He leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. "I'm here."

  “Gabe. Gabe.” Her voice rose in pitch each time she said it. Her hands gripped his arms, her fingers scratching harmlessly at his cotton shirt. Her fingernails scratched faster, with a desperation that twisted Gabe’s stomach into knots.

  He realized she hadn’t inhaled in at least twenty seconds. “Breathe, Kyra. Breathe!”

  “Gabe. Gabe. Gabe!”

  Her eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out, falling forward.

  “Kyra!” Gabe caught her easily, pulling her into his arms.

  Shawn dragged her chair backward. “Lay her out on the floor, Gabe.”

  Gabe obeyed and Shawn put two fingers on Kyra’s neck. “She doesn’t have a pulse.”

  Gabe swore as Shawn moved to start chest compressions.

  “Medics are here,” Tyke said, running to open the door for two slender young men pushing a gurney between them. “Hurry!” Tyke yelled at them. “Her heart stopped.”

  The two men lunged into action, yanking out an AED and shoving Gabe out of the way. The first medic readied the electrodes, untangling the wires, while the second produced a pair of scissors and, starting at the neck, cut Kyra’s shirt open. When he’d successfully sheared through the bottom hem, he threw the two sides wide.

  Gabe’s mouth fell open. Tyke’s eyes narrowed. Even Shawn’s eyebro
ws jumped. Gabe felt more than heard Morris come to stand at his shoulder, also staring down at Kyra.

  Gabe had never seen Kyra in any state of undress before. Even at the hospital she always wore a gown. Obviously.

  Deep scars covered her belly. The markings had completely healed into raised, white ridges, which meant this couldn’t have happened tonight. Gabe doubted it happened in Abstreuse at all. Kyra arrived in the city only a handful of months ago, and these were at least a year old. Maybe more.

  The white scar tissue stretching across her abdomen spelled out a single word. WHORE.

  The medics only hesitated an instant. Then they attached the electrodes.

  “Clear!”

  The first shock brought back Kyra’s heartbeat. She drew in a deep, painful-sounding breath. Her eyes stayed closed.

  “Normal sinus rhythm,” the first medic said. “We need to transport her now.”

  Faster than Gabe could process, the medics put the AED away, lifted her onto the gurney, popped it up, and rushed her out of the room.

  Gabe turned to Shawn. “I…uh….” He didn’t know what he meant to say.

  Shawn did though. “Yes. Go. Keep me updated.”

  Gabe spun and dove out of the room after the medics. Before passing through the door he caught a glimpse of Tyke and Officer Morris standing together, looking utterly horrified.

  The medics had already raced Kyra's gurney around a corner up ahead. Gabe sprinted to catch up, praying her heart didn't stop again.

  Chapter 4

  Kyra’s eyes fluttered open. A bare, white wall stared back at her. Memories flooded in.

  Gasping, Kyra lunged into a sitting position, vertigo instantly making her movements more sluggish. Gabe stood by the window three feet away with his back to her, bolder-like arms crossed over his chest. He whirled when she inhaled and crossed the spaced between them.

  Putting his hands firmly on her shoulders, he gazed down into her eyes. “Kyra, it’s okay. You’re all right. You’re in the hospital.”

  The truth of what he said sunk in and Kyra shut her eyes, lowering her head in relief. She told her heartbeat to calm the hell down before opening her eyes again. Gabe peered down at her from inches away, eyebrows furrowed in worry.